Volvo Car Group announced that it will test 100 self-driving vehicles on public roads in Sweden.

The automaker said that it wants to launch a pilot for self-driving vehicles called the "Drive Me" project. The idea behind the project is to achieve zero fatalities involving Volvo vehicles by 2020.

The Drive Me project will consist of 100 self-driving cars and 100 customers selected to run the vehicles during testing. The cars will be placed on certain roads that span about 50 kilometres in Gothenburg, Sweden.

But don't expect to see these cars on the roads anytime soon. Research and development starts in 2014, but actual testing won't begin until 2017.

It's not clear which vehicles will be used for the testing yet, but they will be based on Volvo's upcoming Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) platforms.

The technology is expected to assume all normal driving functions, such as adaptive cruise control (for following the flow of traffic) and road edge detection with steer assist (for steering the car away from road edges). However, a driver does have to be present in the vehicle to take over in case of an emergency.

On top of that, the technology will offer fully automated parking that doesn't require a driver to be in the car.

“Autonomous vehicles are an integrated part of Volvo Cars’ as well as the Swedish government’s vision of zero traffic fatalities. This public pilot represents an important step towards this goal,” said Håkan Samuelsson, President and CEO of Volvo Car Group. “It will give us an insight into the technological challenges at the same time as we get valuable feedback from real customers driving on public roads.”

Volvo isn't the only automaker with self-driving vehicle goals for the year 2020. Nissan announced that it will offer autonomous vehicles that are broadly available and have affordable prices by the end of the decade.

Then maybe you should have someone else drive for you? perhaps Miss Daisy's Butler would suffice?

This kind of technology.... comes with huge risks, there WILL always be a need for a human driver behind the wheel no matter what, always. You still have a responsibility to the vehicle and plus, I can imagine the look on ppl's faces when they see a car driving by itself to who knows where... biggest WTF that.

Furthermore, ya gotta consider this: how safe will they really be? I'd be very concerned if someone hacked into my vehicle causing an accident that could very easily be blamed on me so, there would need to be 10+ years of testing before these would ever see the light of day in dealerships.